So for Easter, I made a nasty good bucket of some of the best mashed potatoes that I have made in quite some time and there were plenty of leftovers. Rather than just eat “plain” mashed potatoes, I thought I would try frying them up. This batch of spuds was already great, but frying them should turn it up to “eleven!”

I suppose I could have just plopped a pile of the potatoes right into the skillet, but I wanted to do this with them:

I’m using two cutting boards as rails so I can roll out the potatoes to an even thickness.

Using the biscuit cutter for the pucks

The ultimate edible playdoh !

I don’t like to fry in the house, so outside on the side burner of the grill while I cook some burgers.

I didn’t use my stash of bacon grease. Quite literally I have not added to the stash or used the stash in about a year. It sits in a jar in the very back of the fridge, completely hidden. I opened the jar and it did not smell rancid, but I wasn’t really sure what the time limit was of grease going bad, so I didn’t use it. Instead I used some Ghee that I had. Potatoes fried in butter, that’s almost as good as frying in bacon grease.

We often watch “Cook’s Country” on television. Their forte is taking well known or classic recipes and try to make them better. One episode they wanted to recreate the classic greasy spoon, roadside restaurant fried burger that was popular in the late 50’s and early 60’s with people taking long car trips. The interesting part of the recipe was that they ground their own beef with a food processor and it was something we wanted to try. Now, my wife had tried it a couple of times and it wasn’t really that good. The biggest problem was she was using “petite sirloin”. WAY TOO LEAN and there is too much gristle and other connective tissue left on that cut and the meat was still to chunky. So, I wanted to try it again, this time using a piece of boneless chuck.

Starting with a nice piece of boneless chuck.

Cut them into about 1 inch cubes

The cubes go into the freezer for about 10 minutes just to give the chunks a slight firmness. Other wise, when they get run through the food processor, they might just turn to mush.

I ran the meat through the processor twice. I first used the slicing attachment.

Then the meat meets the real chopper blade.

I did a couple of batches.

By golly !! Dang if that at least doesn’t look like ground beef!!

Nothing like nice bright pink beef !!

Now, because the meat is actually small bits and pieces and not long fibers like real ground meat, there is a lot less cohesion and because I do not pack my burgers very tight, these would probably not do well out on the grill. I only want to have to touch these once when I flip them so the don’t fall apart. Do you see the dimple in the middle of each burger? That’s so when they cook, they don’t expand up and end up like meatballs.

Some tater tots done on the waffle iron. Mmmmmm, crispy !

There are a whole bunch of websites/blogs that show what can and cannot be cooked on a waffle iron and tater tots was a good one.

Lightly toasted bun with a little lettuce and some thousand island style condiment. Another burger tip, toasted buns provide a little buffer so the juices of the burger don’t make the bun soggy as fast.

Despite all of the food nazi warnings about under cooked ground beef, I still LOVE my burgers PINK. An interesting thing about grinding the meat this way is that because the bits and pieces are small, I think the burger can be cooked a little more closer to medium and it would still be good because there is not a lot of bite resistance. It doesn’t fall apart like a sloppy joe but it has a good chew.

Had the occasion to take the wife out for her 50th birthday and we went to a “new” restaurant in our area. I say new because we haven’t been there. I think the place has been open for a couple of years.

My daughter again surprised me by not ordering chicken tenders and ordered a hot dog and mac & cheese. My daughter has learned that when the menu says “Macaroni and Cheese”, she needs to check if it’s Kraft mac & cheese. Kind of a rip off if they serve the Kraft, but this was not Kraft and she said it was very good. Her lunch was served on a souvenir “Frisbee.”

I had the fried oysters. The french fries here were very good.

Of the three places that I had the fried oysters, these were the least best. This was bar food. But to say that these were the “least best” of the three is like saying you had to date the second runner up at the Miss Universe pageant!

For all practical purposes, MJs is about the same type/kind of restaurant that Captain Ratty’s is. But the caveat is that I only dined at each restaurant once, so a thoroughly detail comparison is not possible.

Of course dinner starts with a beer.

This time I ordered a Duck Rabbit Brown Ale. The brown ale was good, but I prefer the milk stout.

I don’t normally order soup with my dinner but they had Lobster bisque as the soup du jour and I wanted to give it a try. I’m glad I did have it, it was very good.

I ordered the Po Boy. The fried oysters were very good but they weren’t quite as good as the oysters at Captain Ratty’s. The portion of cole slaw was a bit small but the taste was adequate.

WOW !!

My daughter threw me a curve ball and ordered mini cheese burgers !!

The wife got the lobster wrap and I had a bite of it and it was pretty darn good.